men are predisposed to be providers

JuliusCaesar

Biologically, psychologically and socially men are predisposed to be providers to their family, while women are hardwired to be nurturers, says Lisa O’Hara, a counsellor with the Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service (MRCS).

From Daddy's got a New Job, Irish Times, 17th May

Just HOW do people not realise when they are talking through their hats???

slowburner

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

From Daddy's got a New Job, Irish Times, 17th May

Just HOW do people not realise when they are talking through their hats???

Biologically, psychologically and socially men are predisposed to be providers to their family, while women are hardwired to be nurturers, says Lisa O’Hara, a counsellor with the Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service (MRCS). Even when both have jobs, the woman tends to be the one who oversees things at home.
“When the roles are switched, it introduces confusion as each struggles to adjust,” she says. It requires careful negotiation, so that feelings are not hurt and their relationship adversely affected.

I happen to agree with Lisa O'Hara. I believe that is the way we have been indoctrinated from year one. I'm not saying that indoctrination is right, it's just that's the way of the world. Primal man went out hunting and gathering - primal woman tended the hut and cooked the food. That was just the natural order that worked throughout history and in most cultures. There are vestigial remnants of this in our psyche now - that's quite simply, where we come from. Isn't it the case that far more men go shooting and fishing than women? Up to the '60's maybe even the 70's, the vast majority of women stayed at home while hubby went out to work. Back then, what man wouldn't have felt a pariah if he was at home all day? Ask someone in their sixties what that would have been like. Nowadays, it's probably a bit easier for a man to be the primary home carer but I think very, very few find it 'easy' to change these gender sterotypes and some would see no reason to change.
As to the effects of changing these stereotypes, well that's a whole different matter........

slowburner

JuliusCaesar

slowburner wrote: »

Primal man went out hunting and gathering - primal woman tended the hut and cooked the food.

In most primitive cultures, the men hunt, the women gather. Gathering provides the daily food. Hunting provides occasional food.

Indoctrination is another kettle of fish.

slowburner

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

In most primitive cultures, the men hunt, the women gather. Gathering provides the daily food. Hunting provides occasional food.

Indoctrination is another kettle of fish.

Agreed and stand corrected. But the point is, that there are vestiges of this hunter-gatherer 'tradition' which manifest themselves in different ways in so called developed societies today, no?

JuliusCaesar

I think if you look back through social history in the Western world, that woman have always made a substantial contribution to the household income. Let's face it, most families - until modern times - could not afford to have an unproductive adult hanging around. Women worked in the Middle Ages and were members of Guilds; women worked on farms, and not just cooking dinners for the farmer; women worked in factories in the industrial revolution, and in mines and anywhere else there was work to be done. Spinning and weaving weren't just to supply the family. BUT women's work was seen as of lesser value, which enabled women to be paid less. Conversely, women's lower rate of pay made them attractive to employers - so sometimes they were employed instead of men.

Apart from 1950s and 1960s Europe and America, and excluding single women, widows and poor married women during that time, when and where were women ever just around to look after children and home?

the myth of the non-working woman

slowburner

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

when and where were women ever just around to look after children and home?

......maybe never.

Your argument, and the Feminist Blog, are very convincing. I accept that the vast majority of women, in western culture, have always worked outside the home. Point taken. Fine, I won't argue with that.

But do you deny that men and women practice activities which are gender specific and which have their origins in our hunter-gatherer past?

this , I believe, is why there will be no consensus in this issue.

Cat Melodeon

slowburner wrote: »

But do you deny that men and women practice activities which are gender specific and which have their origins in our hunter-gatherer past?

Other than biological functions like giving birth, urinating etc, can you offer up some examples of gender-specific activities? I'm not sure what sort of things you're talking about. If it is simple things like hunting and fishing, there is a long tradition of women hunters who would be glad to deny the origins of their hunter-gatherer past. From what little I know of the subject, in a significant number of tribes tasks were shared equally between men and women, with healthy women participating in the hunt and the young, elderly & infirm of both sexes doing gathering and caring activities. In a larger number of societies it is true, labour was divided according to sex, but the existence of an alternative suggests that it is culture rather than biology that has determined what men do and what women do.

slowburner

I suppose that all I'm doing here is throwing in the Desmond Morris pop anthropology view, to see what happens when it's kicked around.

I find the question:
'Are there contemporary human activities which are vestiges of a hunter-gatherer past?'

more interesting than:
'Are contemporary human activities gender specific, and if there are, are they a product of nature or nurture?'.


There's a related discussion going on here

Cat Melodeon

Count Duckula wrote: »

B]Feminism[/BWhat's the attitude towards it from a male perspective? A still-relevant movement that has a hell of a lot to fight for yet? Or is it now largely the domain of man-haters or those looking for superiority not equality?

Do the men of tGC consider themselves feminists, egalitarians, or neither? Are you interested in men's rights, and if so is the successful acquisition of those rights inextricably tied to the feminist movement and its goals?

I'd be interested to read the discussion from a decidedly male perspective.

I don't really see the thread you linked (above) to as being connected to this one.

slowburner

Do you mean this one?